peckerwood

English

Alternative forms

• peckawood (non-rhotic pronunciation spelling)

Etymology

Inversion of woodpecker. Application to white people is due to the perception that the woodpecker is a symbol of whites, whereas the crow or blackbird is a symbol of blacks.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈpɛkɚwʊd/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈpɛkəwʊd/

• Audio (AU)

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Noun

peckerwood (plural peckerwoods)

1. (Southern US, Appalachia, slang) A woodpecker.
   • 1900 January 15, T. P. Drowne, “A Trip to Fauquier Co., Virginia; With Notes on the Specimens Obtained.”, in Walter F. Webb, editor, The Museum: A Monthly Magazine Devoted to Research in Natural Science, volume 6, number 3, Albion, page 38:

     On the morning of the next, one of Mr. White's daughters came into the house to inform me that there was a "peckerwood" in a tree in the yard. I immediately took my gun and went out to investigate thinking that perhaps it was a Pileolated Woodpecker, a bird I wanted to obtain.

   • 1953, Jesse Stuart, The Good Spirit of Laurel Ridge‎^[1], New York: McGraw-Hill, →LCCN, →OL:

     When I was a boy, I rooted over an old dead sourwood to get some peckerwood eggs.

   • 1992, Robert Morgan, The Mountains Won't Remember Us: And Other Stories, New York: Scribner, published 2000, →ISBN, →OL, page 40:

     There was nothing but a peckerwood on an oak tree.

2. (Southern US, Appalachia) A peckerwood sawmill.
   • 1933 January 7, Traffic Service Corporation, “Serving an essential Industry: Lumber”, in The Traffic World‎^[2], volume 51, number 1, page 8:

     Throughout this territory are mills of every variety and size, from the small "peckerwood" tractor mill capable of cutting only a few thousand feet of lumber per day to the world's largest pine lumber mill with a capacity of more than one million feet per day.

   • 2002, John E. Lancaster, Judge Harley and His Boys: The Langdale Story, 1st edition, Macon: Mercer University Press, →ISBN, →OL, page 222:

     The Langdale Company's new centralized sawmill and debarker in 1958 constituted a tremendous advance over the old peckerwood technology.

3. (US, offensive, slang, ethnic slur) A white person, especially a Southerner, or one who is ignorant, rustic, or bigoted.
   • 1946, Milton “Mezz” Mezzrow, Bernard Wolfe, “Don’t Cry, Ma”, in Really the Blues, New York, N.Y.: Random House, book 1 (1899–1923: A Nothin’ but a Child), page 16:

     All the time I was stretched out on the infirmary cot I kept looking at the blank walls and seeing the mean, murdering faces of those Southern peckerwoods when they went after Big Six and the others with their knives.

   • 1967, John Oliver Killens, 'Sippi‎^[3], New York: Trident Press, →LCCN, →OL, page 50:

     Just as prejudiced as a Mississippi peckerwood when it comes to colored people.

4. (prison slang) A white (male) inmate, especially one who is racist or who is a member of a race-based prison gang.

Quotations

• For more quotations using this term, see Citations:peckerwood.

Synonyms

• (white person): See Thesaurus:white person
• (rustic): redneck

Derived terms

• featherwood
• wood, woodpile

Translations

woodpecker — see woodpecker

peckerwood sawmill — see peckerwood sawmill

white, especially ignorant or rustic — see redneck

See also

• peckerhead

Anagrams

• woodpecker